


Out of the Clear Blue Sky

by ChartreuseChanteuse



Category: Dukes of Hazzard, The Dukes of Hazzard (TV), The Dukes of Hazzard - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChartreuseChanteuse/pseuds/ChartreuseChanteuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hits him like a tornado out of the clear blue sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Clear Blue Sky

It hits him like a tornado out of the clear blue sky.

It is, in fact, one of those summer afternoons when the blue overhead is dark and unbroken, a perfect day for doing nothing of importance. Oh, his cousin is taking what they're doing seriously enough, but then again, Luke never did figure out how to take things any other way.

If there's some overtone of significance to the game they're playing, a vague sense of jeopardy as pertains to their continued freedom, mostly it's just a friendly game of baseball against some folks from Hatchapee. The kind of thing that usually breaks out like a spontaneous case of measles, except somehow or other, this one got prearranged. And Boss Hogg must have some money on it, because it's been made clear that Hazzard losing is not an option – at least not for boys who already have a smudged record and an easy threat hanging over their head.

But the notion of getting put under the jail is less motivation than pride for old Luke. His cousin wants to win the game simply because he doesn't know how to lose and never has. Which is what has him doing double duty on the baseline, bouncing on his toes five feet away from first base, sun burning into his skin and his sneakers covered in red dust.

Bo was there, too, a second ago. Right on that base that Luke's been coaching during this inning when it's really unlikely that he'll have to give up his post and go to bat. It'll take four more hitters before they get to Luke, and the Hazzard team already has an out and two strikes against them with Enos at the plate, followed by Emery Potter. Seems a shame, but Bo's going to be stranded at second base unless he can manage to steal third without the assistance of a baseline coach.

All of Luke's attention is now on the current runner at first: Sally-Jo Masters, who only got that far by virtue of a walk. She didn't earn her place there – being looked after and taken care of by Luke – through any heroics; she just stood up on the plate letting balls go by her until one too many tracked a little bit high and inside. Either that or the way she pushed her breasts out so tightly against her lightweight cotton shirt as she stood there, aluminum bat resting on her shoulder, left the umpire doomed to find her faultless anyway. Strikes have been known to become balls in just that way. Bo ought to know; he's spent enough time wearing the umpire's striped uniform.

He tells himself that he's annoyed by the breach to the purity of the game. Or frustrated, or (jealous) irritated, or ( _jealous_ ) sanctimonious. He wants to be back on first base because that's where he belongs, at least until he gets advanced through the merit of a hit or a cleverly stolen base. He doesn't want to be here (away from Luke, and just look at how his cousin smiles for Sally Jo, how he speaks words that only she can hear as she giggles back at him, how his eyes aren't precisely on her face but rest somewhere a bit lower than that) unless it is justly earned.

But no. There's that tornado dropping out of the clear blue sky and it can't be ignored. Not with how it's spinning him up inside of it, making his stomach turn and his head swim. It doesn't matter where he is, whether it's first base or second or locked behind bars with Rosco's smug mumblings taunting from the other side, Luke should be beside him. Should be next to Bo at all times, the whole of his attention focused on him.

Ugh. Just look at how that boy checks out Sally Jo's ass. Shameless. Watching it wiggle as she runs—

Oh, runs. Toward Bo and that can only mean one thing. Enos Strate must have managed to connect and send the ball flying… somewhere. Out into fair territory, and Bo has no idea where because he's been watching the way Luke watches Sally Jo and—

Bo runs. He's got long legs and fearlessness on his side. He may not be sure where the ball is, but he can see Milty, Hatchapee's gangly, zit-faced third baseman, setting up into a defensive position. Guarding that square of rubber with about half his body, the other half ready to jump out of the way because Bo is bigger than him and coming on at full speed. There's hollering coming from left field, some sort of encouragement for Milty to hold his ground, so Bo dives low. Looks like a slide from most angles, but to the teenager on third it has all the appearances of a tackle and the kid has never once agreed to play football. He steps to the side and yields the bag to Bo, even as the ball bounces off toward home. Charlie, the husky catcher, has got it before Bo can even find his feet again. A glower through the mesh of his mask makes clear that all the runners had best hold their bases or he'll have no moral qualm about beaning them in some pretty sensitive places. Bo holds up his left hand to show his deference (would lift them both, but the right is what's keeping him safe at third) and Charlie shakes his head in disappointment, because he'd really like the slightest excuse to let loose on the guy who won a game of chicken against poor Milty.

"No hard feelings," Bo mumbles to the third baseman as he gets from his belly to his knees, making sure to never once lose contact with the bag. Charlie's still got one eye on him.

"Time!" Luke calls from over by first. After, Bo notices, his cousin makes sure that Enos is safely ensconced on the base with firm instructions not to go anywhere until Luke tells him otherwise.

The umpire, like everyone else on the field, adheres to Luke's bossy ways, hands in a T to make the time out official. Only then does Bo properly pick himself up from the dirt, grimacing at the ground-in red clay covering clothes that Daisy will undoubtedly refuse to wash, and letting his left hand come across to grip at his right shoulder. Seems he jammed his arm during the slide.

"You okay?" Luke's asking him as he trots over at a quick clip. Brushes Bo's hand aside so he can knead at the sore muscle himself. Thick fingers digging in and at this rate Bo's going to end up bruised.

"Just a little sore," he answers, shrugging away from Luke's attempts to heal him. Too much of that and he'll wind up in the hospital.

"I ain't talking about your shoulder," Luke says with a smirk, his eyes studying Bo's face for any sign that the pain he's feeling is actually serious. "I'm talking about your brain. That was a close one, boy."

"I got here safe, didn't I?" It's not like the Duke boys haven't been sliding into bases since they were knee high to boll weevils.

"Barely," Luke answers back. "If you wasn't so busy watching Sally Jo's backside," no, it wasn't him that had been doing that. Still, if that's what Luke wants to believe, Bo stands ready to let him do it. It's safer than him knowing the real truth of the situation. "You wouldn't've had to do that."

Bo pulls a face at Luke, gets an exaggerated version mirrored right back at him. Figures that maybe everything will be fine. Luke will go back to first base and coach Enos, who must've hit a pretty solid line drive to left. Bo will forget all about his righteous dismay (jealousy) over Sally Jo's illegitimate claim on first base. The game will go on and Hazzard will win, after which both teams will go off to the Hatchapee pond for a swim. He and Luke will sit on the bank and watch girls, do a little light flirting with the pretty ones and maybe even steal a kiss or three. He'll forget all about tornadoes, about emotions spun up into confusion, and how he doesn't like Luke paying attention to anyone but him. He'll just be a normal Duke boy.

His resolve to that outcome lasts for precisely the amount of time it takes him to think it up. Right after that, Luke signals to the ump that he's ready for play to resume, and turns like he's going to trot back to first. Pauses, turns back, says, "Nice slide, Bo," smiles, winks, then swats Bo on the ass.

* * *

But it doesn't mean anything. Never has and Bo never really thought it did, even if he sort of hoped it might. The game ends, Hazzard wins and they wind up at the hotdog stand instead of the pond. Seems like a good idea, perfectly sane since Boss is still somewhere on the periphery, crowing, and not a one of them is carrying a bathing suit. Skinny-dipping is all well and good, but not when the fat man might have them arrested (or worse, join them). Besides, eating's got to be good for a man, fill up his confused belly and clear his head from thinking he wants his cousin's attention in ways that—

He just got swimmy-headed out in the heat, is all. That's why it doesn't bother him a bit when Sally Jo settles herself right up next to Luke, thin cloth of her stretched-tight tee shirt brushing against muscled arm, teeth glowing brightly out of her smile that offers Luke anything he might ever want. Free for the taking, of course. Nope, what's going on over there on the other side of the tipsy diner tables that they've shoved together to accommodate the whole mess of them is none of Bo's business at all. He's not watching for one second, not caring a lick and that's how he gets surprised by the brush of fingers on the back of his own hand. Mary Ellen, smiling at him in coy innocence, leaving him no choice but to offer his soft drink for the sipping. To let her lips close around his straw and flaunt their rounded redness.

"Bo," she says, and it's only then that he realizes that he's been watching Luke feed Sally Jo bites of his hotdog. Mr. Fussbudget, the tidy one who won't even drink from a glass in his own kitchen unless it has been scrubbed within an inch of its life, and he's over there letting a virtual stranger (all right, so she's Daisy's lifelong friend, but she's not related or anything) put her mouth right on his—"Wouldn't you like to go somewhere… quieter?"

This here is Mary Ellen inviting him out to his own car, parked in a shady corner of the lot. To a private place where he can do the same thing he's been doing to girls in private places since he was thirteen, and he doesn't want to go. He'd rather grab Luke by the shirt and drag him out back where there's nothing but shadows and trash cans and maybe the odd raccoon. He'd like to dole out a few choice words, remind his cousin about _germs_ and all the other excuses he has always given for why he can't share food with Bo, then hit him maybe, push him up against the grimy once-white aluminum siding that covers the building and he'd… kiss him.

He wants to kiss Luke. More than he wants to fight, more than he wants to spend time in close quarters with Mary Ellen, more than he wants to eat his hotdog. ( _This_ , Luke would say if he knew what was going on in Bo's mind, _is serious. If it's more important to Bo than food, we're all in trouble_.) Wants to kiss his cousin with the thick, red lips, the heavy hands and the dense body that runs straight up and down and… hell. Luke isn't even pretty.

Daisy, fortunately, brings the whole scene—Bo's impure thoughts and all—to a halt. Planting herself between Sally Jo and a clearly unamused Luke, she claps her hands for attention like she's in charge here. She thanks the Hazzard team for their efforts, congratulates the Hatchapee team for playing a fine (if losing) game, then announces that the Dukes have to leave now because she has to go to work. Luke glowers at what's left of his hotdog (because he's not quite brave enough to direct that look straight at Daisy) then sighs and dusts off his hands. Pushes his chair back, which means disentangling it from the legs of those next to his, stands, tucks in the tail of his shirt and for the first time since he was coaching Bo on the baseline, does the right thing.

"Come on, Bo," he says, paying no attention whatsoever to Sally Jo, Daisy or even Boss, who's probably getting ready to find the nearest CB and call in his lawmen to watch for Dukes cruising back roads. "Let's go."

* * *

After that, things get kind of strange.

For a while, Bo garners himself a reputation as a gentleman. It's nothing he tries to do or even wants, but there's a lifetime and a legacy to live up to. Duke men have been known for their way with the women since the time that tall-tale-telling first began, and women are known to be shameless in their pursuit of Duke men. Bo's got a date on any given Friday night for no other reason than the fact that, since turning thirteen, he always has. Even if he's not sure he wants one, the girls won't leave him alone, so he takes them to the movies anyway. Lets them beg him for a trip to the ice cream parlor afterward and then cajole themselves into a little necking down by the pond. It's habit, it's routine that no one wants to see broken, so he does it. And then he takes the girls home, depositing them on their daddies' porches before midnight with nothing worse than slightly mussed hair because he has no interest in getting under their clothes. Not while his head is full of Luke.

This reputation lasts long enough to grow and manifest itself, to make its way through the barber shop and the diner, into the general store and off to the church. Deacon Merrill smiles at him during a sermon or two and he can live with that. The line gets drawn at home, where Jesse beams at him in pride, Luke smirks at him when he thinks no one's looking, and Daisy starts to set him up with her friends. When he comes home from a date with Becky-Mae Harkins to find Daisy grinning broadly at how well-behaved he has been, then has to duck away from Luke's hand that wants to feel his forehead for fever, he reckons something has to change.

* * *

It takes no time at all to earn back the reputation he used to have. He can't have Luke; he knows that just like he knows his full name is Beauregard. Knows it, doesn't like it, but there's nothing to be done about it. Except to go back to where he was before that stupid baseball game ever happened.

Summer has given way to fall – it took him a few months to polish that halo he was getting for not chasing girls – and the air's a bit too crisp to go down by the lake. So he takes Miss AnnMarie Albertson, who he can't be certain has graduated from high school yet, to the pull off at Kissing Cliff. In his uncle's pickup, because Luke has up and taken the General to the Boar's Nest under some pretense of checking on Daisy, which really means he's there to scout out a girl of his own. Not exactly the sexiest vehicle for Bo to do his courting, but he doesn't care because he's got good looks and blonde charm and a girl that has her legs wrapped around him in no time at all. She may be young, but she's a quick learner and Bo can be grateful for the space in the pickup's cab, since she seems to be fairly athletic, too.

Her jacket and dress are long gone, the windows are steamed and the truck is rocking to the same rhythm as the way she's bouncing in his lap on the passenger side of the cab by the time that knock comes. Knuckle against glass and he knows instantly what it is, but the girl doesn't. Or she doesn't care. There's some evidence for that last possibility in the way she moans that much louder and ups her speed just enough to make Bo stop caring too. She's slumped against his chest, making it hard for him to catch his breath, when he gets around to remembering that there might be a daddy outside the truck. With a shotgun in his hands, just waiting to blow Bo Duke's head off for defiling his daughter, but it's not that. Just a gaggle of girls no older than AnnMarie herself, gathered conveniently distant from the pickup that they can deny they've been peeping, but close enough to see AnnMarie's naked shoulders under the sweep of her red hair, and to watch the sweat drying on his face.

By the next Sunday the old ladies in the church are back to glaring at him and tsking at Jesse for bringing up such rotten boys. Luke's wearing his most innocent face and Daisy's got all the urge in the world to smack him with her umbrella, but it's a perfect, blue-sky day and she isn't carrying one.

After that he makes a point of only dating girls he's already been with, because sure, little AnnMarie wanted him bad enough, or wanted her girlfriends to see her with him, but she was young and her pa could have decided to take the loss of her virtue very personally. Didn't, but that was pure luck.

So he's got about fifteen girls that he keeps on rotation until they start to drop out on their own, one by one. He's not sure why and he never asks. He figures it's because when he's with them he's plenty quick about what he does and not particularly gentle. It's not nice, but it makes the sex go faster and gives him greater opportunity to imagine he's with Luke when he's in the throes. He's got no reason to know for sure, but it seems likely that Luke's not soft and gentle in what he does with girls, since he's not soft and gentle about much of anything else in life. Muscular and powerful; Bo wants to feel what it's like to be with him in that way, but he can't. So he goes through the girls with record speed and at least the town figures he's the same old scoundrel that he used to be.

* * *

He's down to only about four regular girls, and the weather is starting to warm again after an unusually miserable winter when Bessie Lou shows up. She is, as Luke is only too willing to inform him, built like a linebacker and nearly as tall as Bo. Hair in frizzy ringlets around her face and the only thing wrong with her is that she's blonde. Otherwise, when he closes his eyes he reckons that wrapping his arms around her feels something like it would to do the same to Luke, muscular shoulders and all.

Luke can't stand her and makes this point clear at every opportunity. He's halfway rude to her face and behind her back he's downright disparaging. Daisy doesn't like her either, but that's just because Bessie's the new waitress that Boss Hogg hired for the Boar's Nest. She's not really needed; Daisy can handle a shift by herself, but Boss up and decided to put two girls on at once. And Bessie Lou may not be half as sweet and charming as Daisy, but for a girl who could wrestle a grizzly and win, Bessie wears her shorts well. And gets plenty of tips.

Both of his cousins' disapproving remarks get hushed by Jesse. "I reckon it's nice that Bo wants to settle down," he says. As if seeing the same girl for a few weeks in a row constitutes a prelude to marriage. "And it would be even nicer," the oldster adds pointedly. "If'n you two was pleasant when Bo brings her to dinner. You do plan to bring her to dinner, don't you boy?" And maybe, back in Jesse's day, staying with a girl for more than one date was the equivalent of getting engaged. Bo doesn't know and doesn't care.

"No, sir." About the only thing he can be certain about is that there's no girl on the planet with whom he is interested in settling down. "I expect I won't be seeing her no more."

* * *

"You sick?" Luke asks him a couple of mornings later when he refuses to come out from under his pillow. No, he's not sick. "You're warm," his cousin observes, his cool fingers on the back of Bo's neck, which is probably as close as he can come to feeling his forehead when Bo's belly down and hiding under as much cover as possible.

Okay, he's warm, he can admit to that. Hot and sweaty and _God_ it takes everything in him not to be grinding against his mattress right now because the kind of fever he's got can only be alleviated in one way. And not while Luke's in the room.

(But Luke was in his dream, and then Luke's voice in his ear and his hand on his shoulder to wake him and there is nothing in the world that is going to make Bo get out of bed now. Not when there's no chance in hell that he'll be able to stand up straight.)

"I'm fine," Bo mumbles because he doesn't want a whipping for lying. There's nothing wrong with him that a few minutes alone with his hand won't take care of. "You go on, I'll be along in a minute."

"Nah," Luke says in that oddly tender tone he saves for when Bo is feverish or hurt. Fingers tracing across his bare shoulder (goose bumps prickling up, and though he hasn't worn a shirt to bed since their Aunt Lavinia died, Bo wishes he had one on now) then patting him in an offer of comfort. "I got the chores. You just stay put."

By the time Luke gets back, sweat making his hair cling to his forehead and his shirt suck tight against his skin, Bo has been to the bathroom to take care of his little problem and is standing mostly dressed in front of their closet. Jeans and tee shirt anyway, picking out which long sleeve shirt to hang over it all, when Luke grabs him by the elbow.

"Bo," he scolds, and there's no ducking it this time. Luke's free hand firmly on his forehead then backs of his fingers against Bo's right cheek. "You don't look too good," gets explained to him, must be because Luke can't find that fever he's looking for. (Of course not, Bo left that in the bathroom.) "Come on." And Luke's putting him back to bed, odd how the man can be strong and gentle all at once. There's no fighting him so Bo goes, but he stops short of removing his jeans. "You ain't going to be comfortable in those," Luke tells him, but the man has no idea whatsoever about what kind of discomfort removing them will bring.

"I'm fine," he insists again, but clearly he is not. He's under the covers with Luke sitting on the edge of his bed like he plans to stay there all day. "Let me sleep then," he sighs, and Luke pats his cheek before getting up and walking off. Out of the room with the door clicking behind him. Bo closes his eyes because what the heck else is he supposed to do? Not sick but stuck in bed for the day; he might as well sleep.

Gets interrupted a few times by people bringing him tea and toast and aspirins and a book in case he's bored. Daisy tsks and Uncle Jesse tells him to rest up and Luke – Luke just keeps touching him. Here and there, over and over, and if he's not careful, he's going to bring Bo's fever back.

But eventually morning turns into afternoon and everyone loses interest in Bo and his nonexistent illness, which leaves him to sleep off the thing that he doesn't have. (Because there's no way to sleep off the thing that he really _does_ have.)

* * *

Cooter needs help at the garage. Sure, he hasn't asked for any, but even the casual observer has to notice that Old Man Murphy's car is in there far too often.

(And Bo, a former moonshine runner, is far more astute than the casual observer. He notices things. Like when they're out of place or just well placed. Such as his cousin's muscles, bunching from his neck to his shoulders, and from there down to his elbows and eventually his wrists. Moving fluidly under his skin and—)

Either their mechanic friend is slipping or has too much to do, so Bo volunteers himself to work. The crops have been sown and the livestock has been tended to; it's that time of spring when he and Luke habitually spend hours driving in pointless circles, riling Rosco.

Bo wouldn't have minded riling Rosco, but he's not too keen on sharing close quarters with Luke.

Cooter's happy enough to see him that first day, perfectly willing to hand over his wrench and sit back in his chair to watch Bo work. Old Man Murphy's engine compartment is full of cornstalk remnants, which explains about half of why it won't run right. The other half has to do with neglect, and by the end of the day Bo has it about halfway fixed and Cooter's gone through about a half a case of beer.

"Where's Lukas?" he finally gets around to asking when Bo offers him a ride back to his farm in Uncle Jesse's borrowed pickup.

"Courting." Which is more than Bo wants to watch him do, and a large part of why he's here now. "Mary Ellen."

"Why ain't you," Cooter slurs as he fumbles with the pickup's passenger door. Dang thing outsmarts him and Bo has to come around and help him. Seems like Cooter's tolerance for alcohol has gone the way of his crazy behavior. Now he's reasonably respectable most days and doesn't know how to hold his liquor on those other days. "Out courting Mary Ellen?" Everyone, after all, has courted Mary Ellen at one time or another.

"Because Luke is." It's perfectly logical and perfectly honest and if Cooter can't see all the shades of the truth through all his shades of drunkenness, well, that's just fine with Bo. He uses brute force to shove the mechanic up onto the bench seat of the pickup, and helps him close that pesky door without catching any sensitive parts of himself anywhere painful. Takes him home then drives some pointless circles around Hazzard, staying well clear of the pond where he figures Luke and Mary Ellen are doing the sort of thing he'd rather not think about, much less see.

The next morning it only makes perfect sense when he ducks away from an affectionate pat that Luke tries to place on his shoulder or his back or anywhere at all, and announces that he has to go get Cooter and bring him to work. It's not, surely, that he's avoiding an obviously cheerful Luke (who must've gotten laid to have that sort of a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth), but that he has obligations to the man stranded at his remote farm without working wheels.

A second day spent at the garage goes reasonably well, and by the end of it, Cooter's drunk enough to forget to ask him where Luke is. By the third day, Cooter's wearing the brim of his grease-covered cap awfully low, and using a wet rag to wipe at his face when Bo shows up to pick him up in the morning.

"Do me a favor," he grumbles as he accepts the ride that he, after all, actually needs. "And don't stay to help me today."

Which cuts short his career in auto mechanics, and sends him back home to waste the day with Luke.

* * *

Somewhere along the way, there have begun to be a lot of eyebrows raised around him. Not to his face, just over his head (when he's sitting) and around his shoulder (when he's not). Those times when his kin think he's not looking or paying attention, or maybe they figure he just doesn't care, they'll look at each other and an eyebrow will go up. A shrug will follow, so he figures everything will be all right, so long as he doesn't give them any reason to start questioning him outright.

Luke quits trying to touch him after a time. Could be because he's tired of how Bo ducks away from it; probably not. Luke has always had an uncharacteristic kindness toward those smaller or weaker than him, and since Bo is clearly no longer sick, there's no compelling need to be nice to him. It's the sort of thing that used to be annoying, the way Luke could care for him one minute than call him a baby the next. But if it'll keep his cousin's hands to himself, Bo will tolerate rolled eyes.

Those raised eyebrows, though. Something has to be done about them. He's got to share close quarters with Luke because he always has and avoiding it will only make his kin sprain their foreheads with the way those eyebrows go up.

So he starts collecting entry forms for every race that he can get into on the dirt track circuit, at least those within the family's sparing budget. At first Luke snickers at him for spending more time filling out those forms than he ever did on schoolwork, and then his cousin's natural competitive streak kicks in and he takes to tuning the General with a single-minded fervor. Which means he has no time or attention left over for Bo, and while that's a relief in some ways, overall it's much more of a disappointment. This all started, after all, with his realization that he wants Luke focused on him above all else.

Which happens well enough once they get out on the racetrack. Luke's in the passenger seat watching over him, announcing their speed an how much faster he needs to go if there's any chance of them winning, and once or twice he even tells Bo to turn left ahead. As if there's any choice on a race track. After a race well run Bo gets a handshake and a clap on the back before Luke goes off to pick himself a girl from the sidelines. Most times Bo picks up one for himself, and every now and then he manages two. Luke doesn't notice, or if he does he must put it down to good old Duke competitiveness because he never mentions it.

The Choctaw Regional is a cinch with only second rate drivers for competition. The Hatchapee Derby is full of interesting obstacles and he'd halfway like to toss Luke out the window for hollering about them, but then again, sometimes he sees things Bo doesn't. But it all falls apart after at the annual Hazzard Dirt Track Championship, when that overgrown toddler, Rusty Crenshaw, uses the push bar of his ugly black Mustang to make it known that he doesn't care for Bo hogging the lead. Leaves the Dukes with a loosened bumper and an ugly black streak of a wound in the orange of the General's back fender, not to mention the way Bo has to compensate to keep from being slammed into the wall. Grits his teeth, stomps his foot down on the accelerator, and wins the dang race. Skids to a sideways stop right in the middle of the straightaway, not bothering with a victory lap. The rest of the cars struggle to stop before hitting each other; there's no echoing bang of crunched metal, so he assumes they succeed.

Up and out the General's window, Bo's helmet is gone; funny he doesn't remember taking it off. Track hot enough it ought to melt the soles of his boots and that funny wavy look to the air around him as he marches right up to Crenshaw's beast of a car that has no excuse for being so ugly, other than a lazy owner.

Bo is a fair man, and more than that he knows to let the other driver get disentangled from his car before starting anything, so he waits. Hears Luke holler his name in that tone that tries to get him to walk away, but he can't.

Heat in his face and it's got nothing to do with the summer sun baking the red clay all around him. "You ain't had no call," his hand curled tight, all except that index finger that's just about jabbing into Rusty Crenshaw's chest. "To go trying to knock us off the track."

He gets answered by a snort and Crenshaw pulling at the straps on his headgear. "I ain't done nothing to you. Hell," and there goes the helmet, getting tossed into the open window of that sorry-looking car. "If I wanted you off the track, you'd be wheels up in the bushes by now. It ain't my fault you was going so slow that I run into you." Snide little smile after that, tough look that announces clear as day that he doesn't care who he might have hurt. Other people surround them now, Bo can feel them more than see them, knows they're there from that cocky, show-off gleam in Rusty's eye. "You ain't never been worth—"

"Bo," that's Luke again, at his shoulder, asking him with just that syllable to count ten, to not get riled or let Rusty worm his way under his skin because it just isn't worth it. Excellent, unspoken advice coming from the man standing behind him and the perfect distraction. Rusty must think so too; he doesn't bother to finish his sentence, just pops Bo in the jaw with a quick little jab. Hardly even hurts, but there's intention behind it and that's all that matters, it's all the reason Bo needs to pull back his own fist and let fly. Little pop as the force of Bo's punch across his cheek makes Rusty's mouth come open, hard feel of bone on knuckles making Bo draw his hand back and give it a shake.

"Bo," has an entirely different tone to it than the last time Luke said it. Less annoyed and more like alarmed. Worried, maybe.

Bo figures out that it's meant to be a warning just about the time he gets shoved. Turned, more like, and funny if the person doing the turning isn't Rusty's brother, Randall; exactly where did he come from? No one's supposed to be on the track but the racers and—

Thought stops when Randall's fist collides with Bo's eye. Seeing stars and falling, feels another body coming right down with him. Could be Randall, or it might just be Rusty or heck, maybe the stands have emptied out and it's a full out brawl. Bo doesn't know anything other than that his eye hurts and it's awfully hard to breathe with the weight of another human being crushing into his chest.

And then it's gone, and he's pulling air into his lungs, one sweet sip at a time. Opening the eye that doesn't feel like it's on fire and about all he catches is a blur of blue. Hears the thud and turns his head enough to the side to see Randall Crenshaw on his back in the red clay. Rusty's still on his feet and facing Luke, but his hands are up, showing he doesn't stand ready to meet the same fate as his brother. Good choice; surrendering to Luke Duke is always preferable to absorbing the sort of beating he doles out when he's avenging an injured family member. Rusty backs off a step or two, and suddenly Luke's there, reaching a hand down to Bo.

Once he's on his feet again, the air comes easy and he can even halfway stand to open his aching eye. It waters pretty fierce, but he can see that what felt like a crowd around them wasn't more than a half dozen other drivers that are now dispersing, all but Rusty who is crouched next to a semi-conscious Randall. The fans in the rickety bleachers are calling for more of a fight, but it's over now and they'd best stop hollering or Rosco will up and decide he'd better do something other than standing off to the side, watching like it's the same thing he sees every week. (And, come to think of it, it is.)

Luke's got a hold of Bo's face now, tipping it down because he's too short to get a good look from straight on. Turning it this way and that, and it's too much. More than too much when Bo closes his eyes, feels the softness of those thick fingers, how they are warm and gentle. He fights against licking his lips because he figures this is what kissing Luke would be like. Stroke of a thumb along his jaw and Bo has to give himself a mental shake, has to force his eyes open again. Luke smiles, pats him on the cheek like he's proud of Bo's fine fighting skills (or just glad he's not really hurt) then lets him go.

And Bo might have had his bell rung but he's still got enough of his wits about him to recognize that he is doomed.

* * *

He doesn't have a lot of choices left. He can get into fistfights every week so his cousin will cup his face like that again, but after about the third fight he'll wind up getting no more than a shrug from Luke and a whipping from Jesse.

He can try to ignore or forget the way it made his head spin and his heart beat double time to have Luke that close, knowing that just the slightest tip of his head would bring their lips together. Then again, that ignoring thing has pretty much been his strategy ever since that baseball game late last summer, and so far it hasn't exactly worked.

He can do that little trick where he hits his head on a rock in hopes that it'll cause amnesia. He's not exactly interested in becoming Boss Hogg's hastily adopted son again, but on second thought, he certainly had an aversion to Luke when all that happened. It's not pretty, but it's possible. Except for how he doesn't like pain.

Mornings are the worst, when his nether parts hum a thoughtless, vibrant little tune about how the thing they want most is sleeping less than four feet away. It takes some time for his brain to catch up and then it has to put in a double effort to convince the rest of him not to crawl into bed with Luke and just plain ask for what he wants. Morning jogs, he understands, are good for handling this sort of thing. A fine way to burn off unwanted energy, but then again, he's never understood the point of running just for the sake of it. Now if he could talk Rosco into showing up on the porch every morning to chase him around the farmyard, it might make sense. Except that they'd only make it one lap before the sheriff would collapse in a heap and Bo's got no interest in giving Rosco mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Which means he's about out of options. It crosses his mind to leave the farm, and though there's his probation to consider, that's not what stops him. He reckons old Boss Hogg would probably let him go if he asked nicely and brought a banana crème pie with him when he made the request. What keeps him from running off is the memory of how Jesse's face got longer, his hair whiter and his step slower when Luke left for the Marines. There's no denying that Daisy's smile all but disappeared and that his own cheeks bore tears through those nights in his room alone. He hasn't got the heart to put his family through that.

Which leaves him back where he started, with nothing to do but to go on keeping this miserable little secret to himself. And to occupy his time with other things.

Like volunteering at the orphanage. He doesn't particularly like kids, but when they demand every bit of his attention and for hours at a time he can forget that he loves Luke.

* * *

Daisy decides to bring him along on her errands, claiming she needs a big, strong man to help her. But it's really an excuse to drag him from one helpless girl to the next.

"Casey Lynn," who is apparently the newest addition to the boarding house, and Daisy keeps tabs on newcomers. Especially the female ones who might be half has pretty as she is. Enos, after all, lives in the easternmost room on the second floor of that same boarding house and has to pass almost every door in the building to get to work each morning. "Just needs her cedar chest brought up from her car."

Casey Lynn is no one that his girl cousin needs to do a lot of worrying about. Looks kind of like a rodent, with puffy cheeks and dull brown hair hanging limp around her face. Maybe that's not fair; it's pretty dang early in the morning when they show up at her door, though the bags under her eyes make clear she's already up and has probably been so for half the night. She slips on some flip flops, like she plans to help them haul up her heavy furniture with that little on her feet, but Bo holds out his hand for her keys and waves her off when she tries to follow him. Daisy's not one to be deterred, so she's on his heels when he gets to Casey Lynn's boxy, half-rusted station wagon and opens the hatch.

"She's cute, ain't she?" his cousin is asking as she watches him wrestle with the cedar chest. Trying to get it out of the car without scarring it any worse than it already is, but it's like threading a needle. Nothing he's particularly practiced at or has any real use for.

"She's okay," Bo grunts as he finally gets the dang thing hoisted in the air. Juts his chin toward the car so Daisy will close the tailgate. The chest is bulky and slipping in his grip, making him shift its weight around until he's sure he can handle it. "But she ain't got nothing on you," he adds when the car is locked up tight again (and he'd tell this Casey Lynn that she doesn't have to do that in Hazzard, but then again, you never know when a stranger with bad intent may pass through) and Daisy's trotting up ahead of him to open the door to the boarding house.

"Aw, thanks, sugar," the girl answers back; how nice of her, she pats him on the shoulder as he passes through the door, and he just about drops the chest.

By the time they get back upstairs, Casey Lynn is standing in her own doorway, gabbing away at full volume with a girl that's in another doorway down the hall. Platinum blonde fluff on her head, bright red lipstick and anyone can see that she's doing her best to look like Dolly Parton, even if she's a little lacking in that place where Dolly keeps her most noticeable attributes. Perfect pale pink cowboy boots on her feet that prove she's never done a minute of farm work, and though it can't be ten in the morning, she looks like she's ready to go out to the Boar's Nest and dance the day away. Popping chewing gum and all.

"Hey," Casey Lynn calls down to the other girl, "I bet Bo here could help you with that." And the charming young lady steps out into the hallway so Bo can haul the back-breaking cedar chest in before getting sent off down the hall to help out the next damsel in distress.

"Why sure he could," Daisy echoes with a smile that Bo can hear, even if he's not looking at her.

"Where do you want this thing?" Bo hollers back out at the women who are making each other promises that he's going to have to keep.

"Oh, just put it anywhere," Casey Lynn calls back to him. "I can take it from here. Stacy," which he gathers is the Dolly look-alike, "in room ten could really use a man like you."

Which is his cue to go on down the hall to see what she needs.

It's a relief when, after the girls in the boarding house have spent the better part of the morning borrowing him from one another like so many cups of sugar, Daisy announces that they've got to be going. To Rhuebottoms, where he's never been in any particular hurry to go, but it's a mercifully quiet task to get sent down an aisle to pick up a can of coffee. Until, that is, he emerges from the other end to find Daisy talking to another girl – someone from high school that he can almost remember. That sweater she's wearing might just be from high school, too, but her body isn't precisely what is was then, and he can see every single curve on it, even the ones she probably doesn't want him noticing.

"Bo!" his cousin chirps at him. "You remember Hannah, don't you?"

He smiles, because she expects him to, and offers his hand for the shaking. Yep, it's Hannah, all right. They used to call her Hannah-banana, not only because of her yellow hair, but because of her long and lean frame. Now she's more of a Hannah-pear. "Hi, sweetheart," he greets. It's only what he'd call any girl, but she just about melts at the endearment. Seems like it might have been a while since someone flattered her, even in passing.

"We're giving her a ride home," Daisy announces with her brightest smile, leading them both to the front of the storeto pay for the load of groceries in their arms, and ignoring the half-hearted protests from the girl in question. Two bags of what he figures weighs enough to be bricks that he has to lift into the trunk, then the girl herself gets hoisted onto the General's doorframe. And when they get her to her house, he has to help her get the groceries inside, where her two sisters are loitering in the kitchen. Funny how they need help getting the soup pot off the top shelf, and even funnier how one of them manages to brush her hand against his backside as he's reaching for it. He and Daisy finally make it out of there, but not before he's recruited to haul a twenty-pound turkey out of the freezer.

Somewhere around four, they are finally headed home, just the two of them. But they've been up to Granny Annie's (where Holly Mae sidles right up and just about tucks herself under his arm, ignoring the dark glances from her grandmother), over to the Thurgood's shack in Hidden Hollow (where young Maggie Thurgood winks brazenly and swivels her hips in those snug blue jeans she likes to wear), up to see Jane what's-her-name from Pine Ridge, and down toward the swamp where he finally puts his foot down and refuses to visit Swamp Molly and Cousin Alice.

"What's wrong with you, sugar?" His cousin's in a pout over there in the passenger seat.

"There ain't nothing wrong with me." At least nothing that a warm shower and a good backrub won't fix.

She snorts at him. "You been walking around like a sourpuss for weeks. Jesse says it ain't nothing and Luke says to leave you alone, but I figure, what the heck?" Well, it's good to know his moods are a family affair. (But of course they are. They always have been.) "There ain't nothing wrong with taking Bo out," well, this can't be good. She's talking about him like he's not even there, which means this could go on for a spell. "And showing him the sights of Hazzard. Ain't nothing cheers him up like spending time with girls. Girls, Bo, we must have seen something like eight girls today—"

"Nine," he corrects. None of them is terribly memorable in their own right, but he can count the knots in his muscles from all the lifting and carrying he did.

"Nine girls and you ain't flirted with one of them." For a person who has spent the better part of her life shaking her head every time he turns on the charm with the young ladies, Daisy is oddly put out about this. "Some of them was cute. Like that Casey Lynn."

"Which one was she?"

"The first one, Bo." It's like they're kids all over again and he's the dumb one that she's trying to explain basic mathematics and negative numbers to. How it's possible to have less than zero and now, finally, he might understand it. (Wouldn't Mr. Harrington from seventh grade math class be so proud.) Girls leave him empty and hollow inside, as though touching them takes something out of him until he's less than nothing at all. "In the boarding house."

"The one with the cedar chest?" He remembers that better than the girl. It was a heavy bastard. "She had stringy hair. And that voice could make a cat in heat sound like the Grand Ole Opry. All her hollering down the hall to that flat-chested Dolly Parton girl," okay, so he remembers some of them well enough. "And then there was Holly Mae with her gum," that she chewed with enough vigor to make a man fear what she'd do if he ever did put his tongue in her mouth. "And that Maggie needs to watch herself, some day she's going to shake those hips at the wrong guy and he's going to—"

"All right, Bo," Daisy snaps, as if all those things he just said were about her. As if she's hurt and angry and resentful. "That's enough, I got it. Ain't none of them good enough for you." And maybe she is, maybe she worked hard to try to make him happy and he, well he—"You sound just like Luke."

That, at least, makes a certain amount of sense, what with how Bo can't stop thinking about him.

"Sorry," he mumbles, even if he doesn't halfway mean it.

"At least," she huffs, and she's really not terribly happy with him. "You're going to help with the dance committee. You'll get to meet Ally there. She's cute." _And you'll want to flirt with her_ , Daisy's tone says. _And smile, and dance with her that night. Maybe even take her down to the pond._

He's not entirely sure how he got roped into this dance committee business anyway. It happened somewhere between the town girls in their skimpy dresses and the edges of the county where there were blue jeans so tight they may as well have been painted on. A stop at the Boar's Nest so Daisy could use her discount to get them a couple of sandwiches. Sherry behind the bar (who is married with two kids, which a man can tell just by looking at her hips, so she must not have been part of Daisy's plan to introduce him to all the available girls in town) asked who was going to hang the decorations for this Friday's dance. One thing and another, talk of rickety ladders, and Enos sidled in from who knew where to offer his assistance, but he was deemed too short or too heavy for the ladder. Rosco joined in to throw in a few tiddly tuddlies, and somehow or other Bo got nominated and elected to the committee without even a say-so of his own. Since he was so tall and all. Enos had grinned like a silly fool about it, and Rosco had eyed Bo suspiciously, like hanging decorations for a dance was some kind of a prelude to him robbing the bank.

But that fiasco pales in comparison to finally getting home after a day of pointless labor and too many girls to find Luke on the porch. Asking about how he and Daisy spent their time, laughing with gusto at the notion of Bo on the dance committee, and then, unbelievably, pinching Bo's cheeks and announcing just how cute he'll be in the smock their girl cousin will make him wear when decorating time comes. It's enough to make a man wonder whether anyone would notice if he took to sleeping under his bed instead of on top of it.

* * *

The dance is loud and moves with a frantic sway. He reckons that part's for the best – it's too noisy for conversation and the band's pace is too quick for close-dancing. He's there with Ally, because it's tradition for Dukes to have dates, because it's where Daisy wants him to be, because he's out of acceptable reasons to avoid putting his arms around a girl. And Ally does turn out to be pretty cute. Allison Branson, all grown up and it took until this evening, when she came down the stairs in that blue skirt set, stepping into her own living room where Bo was getting grilled by her daddy and reminded to have her home by midnight, for Bo to recognize her. She went to school with him until somewhere about the third grade when she got sent to stay with her aunt in Capital City so she'd get a real education. Off to college after that, but now she's back in Hazzard with a business degree and her eye on running the Hazzard Theater some day.

She's pretty and pert, and those years in Capital City under the watchful eye of her spinster aunt only worked so well. Scratch the surface and there's no missing how she's a Hazzard girl, mostly feral and hungry, and she's got her sights set on him.

Luke's on the other side of the dance floor with half a smile on his face, bright blue eyes twinkling at the girl he's with – Ginnie or Ginger or Georgia. The one with the freckles and the low-cut blouse, white skin from here to her navel and just about all of it visible. But Bo's not watching them, because he's got about all he can do to keep Ally's hands in reasonable places. He meets Daisy's eye, behind the bar in her frilly pink dress even if it is supposed to be her night off, and she grins back at him. That girl needs to get out here and dance with Enos so she can stop messing around in his love life.

"Hey," Luke says, and he's suddenly that close. No more than a few seconds of Bo looking away from him and he's covered a lot of ground in that time. Just goes to prove that there's a reason why Bo always watches him. Watches his face and the way he rolls his shoulders when he's getting undressed for the night, his hands and how they run through his own hair with the slightest provocation, and those eyes. Definitely watches those because they're about the only way he can guess what Luke's thinking. Not to mention that they are bluer than the sky. And right now, they're looking at the dang girl that's clinging to his hand instead of meeting Bo's. "We're going down to the lake."

"Ooh," Ally says, when Bo was about to start arguing with Luke over how they came here together and how in heck is he supposed to get home if Luke's going to run off in the dang General Lee? "That sounds like fun."

Crooked smile from Luke, a wink that's all about sex, and Bo has to remind himself that the way he wants to take that little gesture is not at all the way Luke meant it.

"Let's go," he says, swallowing down a sigh and trying to remember how to arrange his face into that excited look he used to wear when he had a girl that was a sure thing.

Bo does the driving. He figures it's better than the torture of getting stuck in the back seat with Ally, but he's wrong about that. The real torture is hearing Ginnie (or Ginger or Georgia) squeal from back there and call Luke a rascal, with a dirty little laugh to follow. The headlights of an oncoming car illuminate the General's interior for a few seconds, and all he can see is Luke's mop of dark hair against the creamy white skin of the girl's neck. Not even halfway there yet and his cousin has gotten inside the girl's blouse.

The General skids to a violent halt with an echoing squeal coming from the girl with the G-name from the back seat. (Okay, so he's pretty sure it's Ginnie, short for Virginia, and he's also pretty sure this is not the first time she's been out here with the older Duke boy.) Luke unfastens his lips from her skin long enough to look over the seatback at him. Bo expects a glare, but when he turns to look he gets a smile instead. Too good-natured at this moment to be upset about anything, but Luke does make a slightly frustrated gesture toward the window: _Get out_. The General's quarters are a bit too tight for the remainder of the evening's events.

Out in the cooling air with the fireflies and though he's the one that pulls it from the trunk and spreads it so nicely, Bo would as soon leave the blanket to Luke and the G-girl. But Ally's got complaints about the prickly grass and since she's brazenly stripping off articles of clothing – none of the important ones yet, but the preludes to nakedness are getting removed at an alarming rate – he reckons he'd only be kind to acquiesce to sharing space on the blanket with the other couple. Even if it does leave him with a clear and unobstructed view of Luke's back, to watch the muscles flexing as he rolls his shoulders back to shuck his shirt. Damn it all, there's only moonlight to see by but somehow, Luke glows. And Ally pales by comparison.

She pulls his attention back to her with a tiny hand at the back of his neck. A kiss, just a peck and she giggles. Meanwhile G-girl over there moans, a guttural sound at the back of her throat that Luke answers back with some kind of elongated mm-sound. Like she's soup to a starving man.

Ally's got a hold of Bo's face, both hands on his cheeks and her fingernails digging in at the jawbone. Kissing like she means it, like it's the most important thing in the world and he figures it ought to be. Used to be anyway, that nothing else mattered once he got a girl out here. Curfews, shotguns, whippings – he was willing to brave anything for the chance to roll around on this very blanket with someone smaller and softer than him. Someone with boobs.

Which, now that the other couple has gotten prone, it's clear that Luke does not have. No boobs, no softness or extra flesh anywhere. Just muscle and bone and—hair. Luke's got a lot of hair, getting mussed by G-girl's fingers as she's—

No. Bo closes his eyes, kissing Ally back with equal fervor to the way he's getting kissed. Tries to lose himself to the feel of it, but all he can think is that her hands are too small. They're resting on his shoulders, but they don't cover much ground. Not like the way Luke's big old hands over there are rubbing themselves all over that girl. He can't see it, not with his eyes closed, but he reckons he can hear the rustle of girl's clothing as Luke rubs against it or up under it…

Breasts. That's what he needs.  That's what'll make him stop listening to the way Luke can play his girl like a guitar and make sex sound like beautiful music. Bo lets one hand find Ally's hair – too long, too straight, too slippery to provide any kind of a hold – while his other rests on her upper arm. For a second, only long enough to feel the thinness of her blouse and how it slides against her skin. Then he's got a thumb hooked into the neckline, searching for buttons and cursing himself for not having really looked at her before. For forgetting all the tricks of his one-time trade, which would have included studying her clothing back when they were dancing, and making his plan of attack for getting her naked. Now he's here in the dark, not sure whether it's buttons, a zipper, or just a quick yank of the whole blouse up and over her head that will get him access to her soft and sensitive parts.

"Bo," she breathes out when their lips part. A little giggle follows, and he takes the moment to look at her. Her face, but he doesn't linger there longer than it takes to see that she's smiling, then down. Her neck, her shoulders, has to lean back out of the way they are holding each other to get a look at her clothes. Buttons it is.

"Mm," Luke mumbles from over there, and the blanket pulls taut under them as the other couple rolls over, Luke on top of his girl and—

He leans forward for a kiss, a nuzzle, for anything at all and he's too quick about it. Or too awkward; either way, he crashes into Ally's mouth, lips getting mashed against teeth. "Bo," she says again, another little laugh and then her hands are guiding his face to the right place. His hands, meanwhile, are fussing with her blouse. The top button is stubborn or he's lost his touch, but Ally makes it easy for him with a slight shift of her weight that gives him more room to work. After he gets the first button, instinct or muscle memory takes over and the rest come away easily.

"Mm," Ally hums her approval, and for a second Bo is proud. Or just suitably distracted, and it lasts for all of a breath. His breath, not Luke's or that Ginnie-girl's either; it's clear enough she can't breathe right when a series of open-mouthed gasps come from where she's lying.

Bo tips his head out of the kiss on the mental excuse of looking to see whether Luke and his girl are getting eaten by alligators. Ally uses the opportunity to shrug out of her shirt while kissing his jaw, his neck, his ear – that tickles. Makes him giggle and remember that he's not supposed to be paying attention to how noticeably satisfying it is to roll around on a blanket with Luke. So he goes right back to what he was doing. Sort of, now there's the bra to consider.

Once upon a time, which would only be a year ago now, he would not have needed concentration to do this. He would not have needed practice or luck or anything other than his innate skills and blonde charm to get through this next layer. But now he's stumped. (And Luke's letting out a happy little moan.) It seems to neither hook in the back or the front, acts like it's a part of the girl's body, like an extra layer of skin. (And Ginnie-or-Ginger-or-whatever-her-name-is answers with her own vocalization, more of an _ah_ than an _mm_.) He's getting no cooperation from the bra, or maybe it's his frantic fingers that are the problem. (More _ahs_ coming from over there, picking up a rhythm that's slow but building.) Ally pushes against his shoulders and it's only then that he realizes that in his struggle to get her bra off, he's been shoving her backwards, making her bend in awkward ways. The kiss breaks as they resituate themselves. No longer on their knees, but sitting next to each other now, and while he's grateful that she takes the opportunity to unhook her bra for him, he's not terribly happy with the fact that he now has an unobstructed view of Luke's naked back, his naked legs, his naked—all of him, and wrapped around Ginnie, too.

Bo closes his eyes again, goes back to kissing, gropes at Ally's unhooked bra, and pulls it off one arm then the other without any measure of gentleness. The girl snorts; whether it's in annoyance or amusement, Bo's not sure. Doesn't matter, the sound gets covered up by G-girl's panting vocalizations, her whines, her little ahs and ohs. But none of that's going to be important in a second here, not now that Bo has got free and unfettered access to Ally's boobs. His right hand wraps itself around her narrow waist, sliding upward, and the left is on her upper arm, slipping inward. Finally coasting to where they need to be, over smooth skin and the soft roundness underneath. Luke lets out a shuddering moan of relief and Bo's fingers clench in response, grabbing down hard into what's beneath them.

Ally rears back out of his grip, her hand coming up and she slaps him right across the cheek. Tiny hands, but they sure can hurt when they're of a mind to. Bo's face flushes up rosy from the pain and the embarrassment, and though it's clear enough that Luke can hardly breathe right now, Bo hears him muster up a laugh.

Sure, it's funny now. Bo doesn't remember Luke ever being quite so amused when he was the one at the receiving end of a young lady's slap.

* * *

It's that time of summer when the two of them are free to get up to no good. The crops don't need babysitting, it's too hot for Boss to manage much by way of mischief and Jesse starts to look at them sideways. They are at loose ends, nothing important to get between them and doing whatever they please. Last year at this time it was a whole lot of nothing, except there was that one baseball game, with that one inning, that one batter, that one moment when Bo turned green with jealousy, then pink with embarrassment, then yellow with fear. But other than life-changing events, last summer was unremarkable.

Jesse's not taking a chance on them managing to stay out of trouble (that he knows of) for two late summers in a row. He tells them to git, to go do something useful for a while. No specifics are offered, but they don't have to be. 'Useful' means putting food on the table.

Bo chooses fishing, loudly and unequivocally. Luke looks at him a little longer than is strictly comfortable, but he doesn't argue. Maybe he doesn't care, maybe he's not used to being ordered around by the likes of his younger cousin. Bo isn't too worried about what his cousin thinks, he just knows it's the right choice. Fishing's quiet (Luke's the one who insists on that) so there'll be no awkward discussions about what's come over him that's been making him so utterly awkward with girls. And more importantly, he and Luke will come home every afternoon instead of spending nights out alone in the woods in the confines of a tiny pup tent, where there's no Jesse and Daisy just one thin wall away. Too much temptation, and Bo's never been known for his ability to resist.

Jesse takes him aside while Luke's gathering their reels and tackle box to ask whether he's sure about his choice. Seems to the old-timer that he's always preferred hunting, what with how hard it's always been for Bo to sit still and wait for the fish to bother nibbling on his line. (And what goes unsaid is that Jesse can take or leave catfish, but he's awfully partial to venison.) Bo just shrugs and mumbles something about it being nice and cool by the water, then goes off to the barn to tell Luke to hurry up.

And counts himself lucky that the old man lets him go instead of pressing him. Pretty soon some direct questions are going to get asked, and he's a Duke. He can't refuse to answer and he can't lie and he's running out of time.

* * *

Daisy accuses him of frowning too much, Luke's taken to looking at him sideways and Jesse's got that air about him like he's thinking of shoving a thermometer in Bo's mouth. Like Bo's seriousness is tantamount to being on death's doorstep.

So Bo takes to smiling. Pulling his lips back, showing his teeth and he reckons he's probably doing it right. Doing the same thing he's done all his life, but he's never thought about it before. Never considered whether his lips were too tight or too loose, whether he was showing too much tooth, how high his cheeks ought to get pulled up on either side. Never once has he talked himself through the mechanics of the act or wondered whether the result looked closer to happiness or pain.

He walks around with this thing on his face that he can't be sure of, that he doesn't mean but he wears as a talisman against getting dragged out to date girls or asked awkward questions. And it doesn't work.

"You sick, sugar?" Daisy asks him that first day, when he walks into the kitchen for dinner. Bo shakes his head and feels the smile falter. Luke snickers from behind him and the smile fails all together.

But he forces it back onto his face the next day. Tries to loosen it up a little, to make it look more natural and happy.

"You drunk, boy?" Jesse demands when he comes through the kitchen on his way to do the morning chores.

"No, sir," Bo answers, and is grateful that for once Luke's too busy glowering at the emptiness of the coffee pot to bother making fun of him.

"Bo Duke," Rosco grumbles, that same afternoon. Speaks all slow, with one eye squinted down as if the sun is too bright. Calm for once, not an _ijit_ to be found, maybe  because Boss isn't hovering around, telling him to arrest the Duke boys for walking down the street and minding their own business. Which is about all they're doing, just going from here to there, post office to Cooter's garage without engaging in any illegal activities whatsoever. "What are you up to?"

Luke's right there beside him, but it's like the sheriff doesn't even know it. Or doesn't care, as if all those times they've been tossed in jail are entirely Bo's fault (and that's not even close to the truth – Luke's been the cause of more than half of their shenanigans) and there Bo is, up to no good all over again.

"I ain't doing nothing, Rosco," he answers back, forcing that smile he's been wearing to widen just a touch.

"You look like trouble. Just walking trouble, and if I catch you doing anything at all—"

"You'll cuff me and stuff me, I know." Bo lets his lips fall back down into a flat line.

"You just—ijit—" well, at least Rosco's regained his usual form. "You just test me boy and you'll find out, why I'll lock you up and then I'll—"

"Thank you, sheriff," he interrupts, gets a snort from Luke. At him or at Rosco he can't be sure, but he's about sick of being halfway laughed at by Luke. It's hard enough wanting his cousin in ways that he can't have him; it's a lot worse that Luke keeps on treating him like some halfway amusing kid, the same as he always has. "Your concern for my welfare is very touching." And the Duke boys walk on, leaving Rosco to his noises and threats. For a minute his smile is real, then Luke claps him on the shoulder for being funny or clever or whatever it is that the gesture means, and he feels it all stiffen down again. His face, his shoulders, his belly, his—

But he makes it to Cooter's without anything blossoming up where it shouldn't. Lets the mechanic's grease-stained hand wrap around his own clean one in greeting, says his how-de-dos. Small chat ensues, about Daisy's pies and old man Murphy's car that's in for repairs again and whether the General's due for new shocks. Bo lets Luke do their talking for them, since everyone knows that what one Duke boy says, the other agrees with anyway. Stands there with that smile stretched across his face as long as he can stand, then takes a couple of steps away to poke at Cooter's inventory, the same as he has a hundred times before.

"What's wrong with him?" he hears Cooter mumble to Luke. "His boots too tight or something?"

Luke must shrug, because Bo never hears the answer. Never hears the footsteps, never knows what's coming until suddenly Luke's there, at his side. All the affection in the world in how that hand comes up, brushing against Bo's cheek and then resting on his forehead. Luke checking him for fever again, concern softening his eyes.

"You okay?" he asks and then Bo feels the cracking end of his patience or denial or whatever this past year has been.

Time is up.

* * *

He waits, of course. Not long; he's already been still and quiet about his feelings for far too many days and weeks and months. A whole lifetime of action and this one time he tried to hold back – should have known it wouldn't work.

The next morning is as far as he makes it. Privacy is needed, and not the kind that can be found in a bedroom that's just thin walls from their kin, where a brawl would be loud and obvious and they might even wind up crashing right through the plaster. More like the sort of privacy can be found in the barn, which isn't a lot better as far as structural stability is concerned. Not to mention that Jesse could decide to join them here for morning chores at any time, though when last seen, their uncle was in the kitchen, staring into the empty coffeepot and mumbling complaints against its emptiness.

The barn is simply the best Bo can do on short notice.

Chickens are fussing at their feet, it's hot already and Maudine's made an awful mess of her stall. Luke makes the fatal mistake of stopping long enough to set his hands on his hips and glare about how the morning, just by dawning upon this chaos, has already gone wrong. Bo grabs him then, elbow and shoulder, turns and shoves him before he can get his feet set in resistance. His ankle clips the splintering ladder that leads up to the loft, setting it to rattling and leaving Luke just about pinwheeling backward toward the wall. Arms out and trying to catch himself, but Bo does it for him, grabs him by yesterday's shirt that he put on just to come out here and tend to messy livestock, and keeps him upright. Pulls him back against his own momentum and gets a free hand up to slip in the sweat on the back of Luke's neck. Clenches down to keep his hold and there's nothing particularly nice how he does it, but that doesn't matter. The whole motion ends with his lips on Luke's as they take that one last step and his cousin's pinned up against the barn wall.

Bo tips his head to make this press of lips something more like a kiss, to make his intentions understood. To be a little bit gentle somewhere, something closer to friendly when the rest of his body is tensed to hold Luke still against any fighting he might get in his mind to do. Then again, he might not – Luke seems frozen there, his hand up but touching Bo nowhere other than lips. Nose against his cheek, but that's accidental. Or Bo's fault – he's pushing forward into the kiss as if this were a race and he could win just by going the furthest or the fastest. Luke's lips press back against his, wide hands find his shoulders and shove him back and off. Noisy how they come apart, smack of lips and half of Bo's name, just the vowel. The B must have been what felt, for just that split second, like Luke kissing back.

"Bo!" Luke snaps again, because it's just unacceptable that his first complaint didn't come out clearly.

"I, uh," Bo answers as he gets his feet solidly under him. Luke was either too surprised or too kind to push him down into the filthy layer of hay that covers the dirt. Bo would bet on the first of those options, considering his cousin has never been shy about knocking him off his feet in the past. Of course, that would be when they're engaged in some friendly wrestling, and this here is not that. This is Luke, still leaning against the wall, keeping as much distance between them as the small space will allow, and wiping his lips with his shirt sleeve. Scrubbing away the memory of what just happened like it's blood from a fistfight. "I got to go, uh—"

Bo doesn't bother to finish what he's saying. They both know he's got to go, so he leaves. Considers walking, figures it might be best if he tries to look natural. Casual. But it's too late; now that the cork has been pulled from the pressure-cooker inside him, there's no hope for calm and control. Two somewhat normal steps, and then he's running.

Not, of course, that it matters. If Luke takes out after him there's not a whole lot he can do about it. Just take a nosedive into the dirt and hope Luke either trips over him or musters some pity for him and decides against pounding the tar out of him.

He gets all the way to the tree line before realizing that the thudding in his ears is nothing more than his own heart, and then he has to shake off the disappointment that for once, Luke's so disgusted with him that he's not even interested in chasing him down and killing him. This time he must really have gone too far.

Too far, and where should he go now that he's run off? How long will it be before Luke goes from shock to anger and comes for him? Not that it matters; his lungs burn from his forgotten breath, and the land is rugged under his feet. He needs to stop now, to catch his breath and to think.

Luke has always known how to find him, wherever he has gone. On Duke land or off it, his cousin has some sort of radar that brings him straight to Bo. (Not, of course, that this has been much of a problem before. Not since they grew up enough that Bo stopped giving Luke reasons to want to clobber him. Mostly.) Then again, what is that thing Luke says about him? That he's predictable. He has a habit of going where Luke knows to look.

Rest break must be over; his breath no longer rasps through his chest and his brain has started to work again. He sets a course and if he's not exactly running, he still moves quickly. No sense in taking any chances.

Their own land, and if Bo knows it well, Luke knows it better, but out along the northeast property line, well, he'll be safe here. Because the fence that stretches out endlessly in front of him and off to either side is in need of repair and has been since that late-winter storm took a section of it down. Or half down. It's laying in the same dizzy tangle that it has been since he and Luke first started stalwartly ignoring the need to fix it back in February. There's no reason in the world that his older cousin would come to look for him here, not when this place is all about work that neither of them wants to do.

He sits on a boulder with a harrumph of an exhale and the realization that he's a complete fool. He's not sure how he expected his fine plan of kissing Luke to end, but if he'd known it was going to happen precisely this way, he would have waited until after he had a good old farm breakfast in his belly before doing it.

Crabapples grow wild in the woods on the far side of this particular part of the property line, so he gets himself back up and chomps on a couple of those. Nothing like what Daisy's got frying up in a pan back at home, but it makes his belly stop grumbling. Then he sets to completely dismantling the half-destroyed fence just for something to do. No tools or planks to go about actually fixing the dang thing, but that's okay. Seems like destruction is more his style today anyway.

The work is meant to distract him, to keep him from thinking. From remembering the feel of Luke shoving him back, the rigid resistance to the kiss, the—

Flickering through his mind like a movie at the Hazzard Theater except instead of the rust-colored canyons and buttes of the wild west getting galloped through by the heroic likes of John Wayne, all that's in his head is the Dukes' dusty barn, the livestock and oh, yeah. Bo. The town fool and general laughingstock.

Not, of course, that he imagines there's a lot of laughing going on. Not back in the drafty farmhouse, where Luke must've already told Jesse. And Daisy, whose eyes must've gone round and dark with worry when Jesse started laying out his straps, trying to decide which one ought to cause the most pain and whip this particular devil out of his youngest charge. Then the bunch of them sitting at the kitchen table, Jesse's chin in his hand as they all worked out where to put Bo, because he certainly can't sleep in the same room as Luke anymore. Can't sleep with Daisy either, because he sure can't be trusted to keep his hands off any of his cousins. Maybe they've set up the tent in the farmyard for him. That wouldn't be so bad. More comfortable than sleeping in the General, and nicer than the crumbling, cobweb-filled shed. Or the barn with the rest of the animals that don't know any better.

By the time he's gotten around to wondering whether he'll be dragged to Deacon Merrill to make his confessions or whether he'll find himself banned from the church building altogether, he's got a pile of half-rotted lumber off to one side and a grumble in his belly that announces it's either lunchtime or dang close to it.

Crabapples for breakfast left him a little sick to his stomach (or maybe it was his thoughts that did that) and he's not exactly eager to have any more of those. So he takes a chance that no one else will be out in the noontime heat and steals into the fields, then crosses to where Daisy keeps something that approaches a vegetable garden. Finds a tomato so ripe that he reckons it's for everyone's good if he picks it; it won't last until tomorrow. Decides against a watermelon, since those represent real income when sold at the fall fair, grabs a cucumber even though he doesn't really like them. Figures he'll pick some scuppernong from where they grow wild along the edge of what used to be the Potters' property, and a drink from the creek that runs through the woods. Not the sort of lunch his family is eating right now, but it's about the best he can expect.

And when his meal is done and he's dunked his head into the creek for good measure, he heads back to the fence to finish what he began, with a staunch resolve not to rethink all those same thoughts he thought about this morning, but spends hours thinking them anyway.

His shadow stretches almost the whole length of the clearing when he hears a twig snap. The thing he's been waiting for so hard that when it finally happens, his heart slams against his ribs violently enough to kill him right there on the spot. His body turns on auto-pilot, followed by his head, but his eyes know better. They ghost along the fence that's more down than up anymore, his vision following the line of where it was until it meets up with the trees and shrubs and then blue. So much blue, from Luke's jeans to his eyes, and he's just standing there. At the edge of the clearing, a hand on his hip. Not moving to come closer or to swing a fist. Looking at him the same as Bo's looking back. Late sun glowing orange in his hair, throwing shadows. Light and dark across his face, accenting those hollow places in his cheeks and it's like seeing his cousin fresh back from war all over again. Skinny and exhausted and harassed.

"You ever coming home?" the question, and then it's just Luke again. The same guy he woke up to this morning, not the short-fused, half-feral Marine.

"I don't know," Bo answers, his voice rough, tight. "I ain't thought about it." He really hasn't. The present has been worrisome enough to fill his head to bursting the whole day, he hasn't had time to think forward. But there's Luke, always planning and needing to know what's going to happen next, forcing him to consider things he'd as soon let go of.

"Come home," Luke says, his eyes in a squint against the way the sun's trying to get into them. Holding his place, his hand still on his hip, the other one running through his hair and catching at the back. Distracted little scrub there, then that hand drops back to his side. A head nod, like putting a period on that last sentence and he turns and goes back the way he came. Cuts through the trees and he's gone.

It's probably a good half hour later when Bo finds himself on the porch of the only home he can remember. Deep breath to steel himself like he's done a thousand times before when he knows that opening the door is going to bring him in close contact with a red-faced man with a powerful whipping arm. Used to be that Luke was willing to get between him and the punishment, to mediate or to take some of the licks. Of course, back then Luke was pretty likely to have started whatever brought them to this point. This time it's all Bo's fault.

But the light in the kitchen is warm and welcoming and when he pushes through the door, there's just his kin, in approximately their usual places. Luke and Daisy trying not to bump into each other while one digs the saucers out of the back of the cabinet and the other scrapes the last of the succotash from pot to serving bowl, Jesse in his chair with the newspaper in front of him that's not getting read. Not without his glasses.

"Well." Those faded blue eyes scan up his body to meet his. "There he is." Even tone, impossible to read. Not the sort of genuinely happy the oldster is to see him after a well-fought victory on the racetrack, that much is obvious. But also lacking the venom of his younger years, when Bo would show up hours late, with nothing but bruised knuckles and a swollen lip to show for himself. The words are flat, stating facts. _Here he is_ , as if they don't all already know that. Like they can't see him, six-feet-plus with bright yellow hair, and—what's Jesse getting at anyway? Bo feels his chest puffing with every breath that can't seem to make up its mind whether to be scared or angry. "Well, go get cleaned up, boy. Dinner's not gonna wait for you."

"Yes, sir." Maybe the old timer is just plain hungry. Bo heads off to the bathroom to do as he's been told. Gets back to his chair just in time to bow his head and hear grace, then the succotash is getting passed and the chicken's right behind. There's nothing but chewing and the humid silence (like the hot, wet puff of breath that came from Luke's mouth just before Bo pressed their lips together) and just when Bo figures they might all drown in it, Jesse speaks up.

"So, Bo, Luke tells me," _that you're a dang fool – no, worse than that, you're a blemish on the Duke name. The worst kind of sinner. Bad enough you went after your own kin, but you went after the wrong one. I reckon it's time you packed your bags and_ —"That you spent the day out there working on the fence line." _After you cornered him in the barn and kissed him._ "I reckon I'm tickled pink that you done that. But," _I'm going to have to turn you over to Rosco, because what you did was not only unforgivable, but also illegal. And not moonshine-running illegal, but the kind of thing that really ought to get you locked away from the good and decent people of this community._ "I reckon that next time, I'd as soon you let us all know what your plans are, first. You made me worry about you, boy."

"Sorry," he says, about the thing his uncle is scolding him for, and all the things he hasn't said. He glances to his right to meet Luke's eyes. Doesn't quite get them, but he does get a quick shrug. _Of course I didn't tell him nothing, Bo,_ it says. _I ain't never hung you out to dry before, and I ain't about to start now._ "Sir," he finishes.

"That's all right," Jesse answers him graciously, and just like that, it's over. Routine resumes.

At least that's what he thinks until they're in their beds at well past midnight and Luke's not sleeping. Oh, he's pretending to, lying just as still as a stone to Bo's constant turning. He's a fair actor, old Luke is. Good with a shuck and jive, but he obviously has no idea what he actually looks like when he's asleep, how he sprawls and his breath gets thick and heavy as opposed to the careful, measured in-and-out that's coming from over there now.

"Luke." If there's sleep to be missed, Bo figures it's his responsibility to be the one missing it. It's not Luke's fault that a stupid little game of baseball – a year gone by now, and his cousin might not even remember playing it – led to this. "I'm sorry."

A rustle of sheets, but to his credit, Luke doesn't bother to pretend as though Bo's words have awakened him from peaceful slumber. "I know. I'm," _sorry too_. Like clockwork, like the refrain of a song they've sung a thousand times before. It's what Luke's supposed to say, then they're supposed to shake hands. To hug if it's been a particularly nasty fight, but Bo doesn't figure Luke's likely to ever want to get close enough to put his arms around him ever again. "Not holding any grudges."

It's not much, but it's something. Enough that somehow, though Bo is sure he never even closes his eyes, he finds himself waking up in the sludgy early-dawn light the same way he has for the better part of his life: with Luke shaking his shoulder.

"Get up, Bo."

He finds his jeans, his boots, an old tee-shirt, like usual. Stumbles out the door and across the loose dirt of the farmyard to find the same chickens staring at him with those same beady eyes, the same smell of livestock and hay. Picks up the same rake he's used most of the mornings of his life, makes the same unpleasant discoveries of exactly how much cleaning he and his cousin are going to have to do. Luke crosses in front of him the same as he ever has to get the milk bucket. Works shoulder to shoulder with him to get the morning started so the day can proceed the same as it always has.

He has done the unforgiveable and Luke has forgiven him anyway. This is about as normal as it gets.

* * *

The next weeks eat away at their time like biting flies. There's the fall fair and Daisy's pies to be baked and entered into the competition, there's Jesse's heirloom rattlesnake chili recipe to dig out and fiddle with until the old man figures the he's got it just about right. There's the log chopping contest that Luke's been working himself into a fine fit over having lost last year and has every plan in the world of winning this year, and it all gets capped off with an old bootlegger's road race. No moonshine, just dirty driving in the daylight, and the Duke boys spend half their time and all their spare change getting the General into perfect shape for it.

After that comes harvest, with its merciless rhythm of work-eat-sleep leaving no room for anything else, other than the occasional moment taken to rub a charley horse out of a thigh muscle or to bandage a palm sliced by a cornstalk. He's never been so grateful to be so overworked in his life.

* * *

There are more leaves on the ground than overhead by the time he gets around to thinking again. By then he kind of figures out that he's like the General's radiator. All that pent up pressure inside him, but the kiss in the barn relieved some of it. Oh, sure, it wasn't pretty at the time, a whole bunch of steam came out and he reckons that both he and Luke got a little singed by it. But it's totally dissipated into the cool air now, where it's safe and can't hurt anybody. And if there's still a crack left over somewhere inside Bo that hasn't ever been patched or repaired, well at least he still runs. Just at lower speeds and shorter distances than he used to.

Or maybe he's more like an old house, settling into itself. Spiders in the corners and dust on the windows. Ghosts and memories floating through the cracks and Bo doesn't like those things that have taken root inside him anymore than an old house wants to be haunted. But he can withstand it, just like the Potters' old empty shed that's sat crooked on the hill since Jesse was a boy, hanging on through countless storms.

Bo goes back to his old routines, the ones he knows so well he can follow them blindfolded and staggering drunk besides. Races, the Boar's Nest, girls. He can still dance, court, kiss. If the way he smiles at the lovely ladies isn't half was bright as it once was, well, they never notice. Not as long as he lets them loop their arms around his shoulders, their fingers finding his hair. Telling him how soft it is, how nice to touch and then sort of pulling themselves up by their skinny little arms. He helps them with that, hands gripping their waists, and he feels how soft their lips are against his. Every now and then he takes one out to the lake and lets her wrap her legs around him. He tells himself it's a good deed, just doing what the lady asks, but he knows better. Every time he goes out there it's just a chance to let a little more steam out of that place where he's cracked and broken, to keep the pressure from ever building up like it did over that one, endless year.

* * *

There's an unwelcome bite to the air and the birds are angling their way across the endless gray sky in search of the tropics by the time he gets around to looking at Luke. Not glancing, not those accidental little meetings of the eyes, but really watching him. Paying attention to something other than his own miseries and that's when he sees it.

His cousin's head at a haughty angle, the smirk at the corner of his lips. The way he sasses Uncle Jesse, and then there's the girls. In town, on the sidelines of races, in the roadhouse. Luke's after them with a single-minded attentiveness, behaving only as nicely as he has to in order to keep a steady stream of them coming to him. Disappearing with one just long enough to do things that Bo doesn't want to think too hard about, then back to find himself another.

Bo can't say when that behavior started; he was too mired in his own thoughts. But it ends abruptly the day that Daisy accuses their older cousin of being the same old rutting goat that he was as a teen. A pat to Luke's shoulder to try to soften it into a joke, but all of them sitting at the breakfast table know it's not. Those bright blue eyes, still bloodshot from the night before, squint down in distaste that the details of his behavior have just been announced right in front of their uncle. And Bo, and God, because Jesse's throat clears to announce that there will be no such talk in his kitchen, at least not now while his hands are folded in preparation for grace. They bow their heads, and the moment passes.

Somewhere around Christmas, Luke remembers his Christian upbringing or gets into the holiday spirit. The arrogant attitude disappears and he's nicer. Gentler, better behaved in that self-conscious way that seems eerily familiar to Bo. Or would, if he wasn't smarting over the fact that his oldest cousin has taken to setting the table with two plates on Daisy's side, sitting by himself and leaving Bo to the close company of their female cousin. He justifies it with excuses about wanting to get his fair share of the food before Bo eats it all, but that's just ridiculous. Bo hasn't stolen a morsel off Luke's plate since they were knee high to grasshoppers.

It's not until his cousin takes to dressing himself at the far corner of their bedroom so there's no chance to brush elbows, then disappearing after breakfast to help Cooter in the garage that Bo recognizes the pattern. Drinking beer like it's no stronger than water, then finding some oversized Yankee goon to brawl with at the Boar's Nest, and when that gets old and the weather starts to warm again, the morning jogs start up.

Bo wonders how it happened for Luke. Was it a tornado out of a blue sky or more like one of those slow-moving thunderstorms that come creeping up the valley, announcing their approach all the way? Did it scare the heck out of him, make him sick to his stomach, leave him thinking about—

No, probably not. Bo doesn't have to go about feeling Luke's forehead to know that he's come down with something, an itch, a want, and more regrets and objections than he has any interest in sifting through. But if his symptoms are similar, the disease is different. Bo was lovesick; Luke's got a case of the curiosities, and if memory serves, there's a certain risk of getting killed in these sorts of circumstances. And even if he's not a cat, Bo reckons he's the one in greatest jeopardy.

Then again, he recognizes that he doesn't have a lot of time for worrying about life and limb. If Bo remembers his own experience in the right sequence, the next urge, after jogging, is to leave home. And Luke, he's liable to give it a lot more consideration than Bo did. He's not as young as he once was, but he's strong and he's smart, and the Marines wouldn't turn him down if he showed up on their doorstep again.

A plan. Bo could surely use one of those, but since Luke doesn't seem to be in any mood to cook one up, he's going to have to wing it.

* * *

Privacy, he remembers wanting it before. Six months ago, eight, maybe it was nine. Back when it was his problem and it's really not fair. Luke ought to do the thinking this time.

Space, distance, he's going to need a lot of both. Kissing Luke because Bo needed it might have gotten him punched. Kissing because Luke needs it is bound to be a lot more dangerous, because that boy never has known how to accept help. The barn is not going to be good enough this time. Hunting and camping are out – Luke will only refuse to go. Most of their fishing holes are fairly remote, but privacy is not guaranteed. Besides, Bo reckons that the better part of wisdom is to not be near bodies of water big enough to drown in.

The old Indian caves are full of blunt objects that could be used against him and he has no good excuse to drag Luke there anyway. Somewhere on their own property would probably be best, but he can't think of a place where Jesse might not stumble upon them and besides, there's too much room for Luke to get away from him out there. The General is too cramped and the Jeep too open, and Bo reckons there's only one thing he can do.

He needs to get them arrested.

* * *

"Dang it, Rosco," he complains, craning his neck to get a better view of the cruiser behind them. He's close, but not close enough. Bo's still got plenty of room to get away, and while he can act like he's annoyed by the sheriff chasing after the Duke boys once again, he hasn't got the talent to pretend to be a lousy enough driver to let the law catch him. Luke would never buy it. "What are you after us for this time?"

He turns back toward front, catching sight of Luke's shaking head in the periphery of his vision.

"Breaking and entering, for starts," the sourpuss informs him. "Grand theft," holding up a file folder with torn edges and a few browning pages caught up in paperclips. "Office supplies. This was some fine plan you had, cousin."

Working without Luke – no, that's not quite right, because Luke's been right there all along, being his usual nay-saying self (that is, in between going for jogs and making sure that no matter what happens, no part of his body comes in contact with any part of Bo's). More accurately, working _despite_ Luke has been something of a challenge. He reckons his plan has earned Luke's disdain.

"We didn't break nothing," Bo points out. "We entered, but I figure we're within our rights to enter the courthouse."

"All right, you Dukes," comes from behind them, followed by the squawking feedback of a bullhorn. Must be one of those days when Rosco has forgotten that both his cruiser and the General have CBs in them. Or maybe he just likes to hear his amplified voice echoing off the trees and boulders. "I got you now. Just pull over, I'm serious this—"

The last word never gets said. Quite possibly he lost hold of his bullhorn when the cruiser hit that dip that's been in this road for as long as Bo's been driving. The one Rosco can be counted on to forget about when his brain is filled to capacity with the excitement of hot pursuit.

"Through the door," that's Luke, filling in the gap that Rosco's silence leaves behind. "We would have been within our rights to go in through the door, not the window. And the only one that's allowed in the file room—"

"—Time," Rosco pipes up. Seems like he's gotten hold of his toy again. "I mean it. You just pull over now."

"—Is that dipstick behind us. Why I ever let you talk me into this fool stunt, I'll never know."

Well, that's easy. At least Bo thinks it is. This here mission hasn't been anything more than a shuck and jive. An exercise in silliness, an effort to liberate old files from the Hazzard County archives, to expunge their daddies' permanent records. Why? Because Bo proposed it as a fine idea, even if those papers have been locked up in that file room for twenty-odd years now. And it's a testament to Luke's relatively desperate need for distraction that he's along on this adventure at all. Luke, after all, is not Rosco. He can only be shucked and jived if he wants to be.

"Rosco ain't the only one," Bo informs his smugly smart cousin.

"What?"

"All right you boys in the General Lee," Rosco tries again. He's hanging in there behind them pretty well. Bo ought to be grateful for that, he supposes. Still, it would be far more useful if the sheriff would give up his fascination with the dang bullhorn and pull some fantastically stupid vehicular maneuver that would give Bo an excuse to stop running and let the Dukes get caught. "You're under arrest, and this time I got you dead to rights."

"What?" Luke repeats, and Bo figures that since the question can't be meant for Rosco, it must be meant for him.

"Uh," Bo answers, his mind scrolling back over what he was trying to say before that racket started up from behind them again. Whenever this pointless chase does come to an end, Bo reckons he's going to have to do the whole county a favor and wrap that bullhorn tightly around Rosco's neck. "Rosco ain't the only one," allowed in the file room. Any county employee (which Bo is perfectly willing to admit that he and Luke are not) can go back there, so long as they have good reason to. "There's also Enos."

"What—" comes out a lot higher and a little more choked-sounding than his cousin's normal voice.

"There's Enos." Completely different inflection that time, because somehow or other, saying Enos' name in the privacy of their own car has summoned the deputy from wherever he's been hiding all along (or maybe, in between turns hollering on the bullhorn, Rosco's been using his CB after all). There, in fact, is Enos, skidding out into the roadway from a gap no larger than a deer path. In front of the Dukes and he's leading the chase for a few seconds until it seems to dawn on him that he's not supposed to be, and he slams on his brakes.

Bo compensates by cranking his own wheels left, because he doesn't want to turn the General into a dense orange paperweight that's halfway embedded in the back bumper of a Hazzard County cruiser. Bumps over rough ground and glances into his rearview mirror to watch Rosco attempt the same maneuver with fairly disastrous results. Echo of metal bending and he brings the General to a halt. Leans out the window to watch the sheriff throw his car into reverse in an attempt to get it separate from Enos', mangling his own front fender and ripping Enos' rear one off all together.

"They're okay, Bo," Luke calls from where his dark head is hanging out the passenger-side window. "Hit it."

"You sure?" It really is important to assure that all lawmen are safe and accounted for. Uncle Jesse would tan their hides if—

"Go!" Luke's back in the seat next to him and grabbing for the steering wheel as if that'll make the car move. Bo presses his foot down on the accelerator before his cousin gets the bright idea to climb halfway into his lap to get to the gas pedal. Time for that sort of acrobatics later. There are a couple of other tasks Bo has to manage to accomplish, first.

They're bouncing across what used to be the old Clayton property, not the best option. Full of stones and half-rotted things, not to mention a rugged ditch or two. He and Luke know every inch of this place, but the whining sirens behind remind him that there are two clueless lawmen that he's dragging behind him like so much residue on his shoe. He needs to be careful.

His pace slowed, he angles back toward the road. More bending metal and he's afraid that he's lost one of the cops, but both sirens keep right on wailing at about the same pitch as they ever did. Just another fender getting lost.

"You gonna drive, or you gonna stop and take in the scenery?" gets groused at him from the passenger seat.

"I ain't made up my mind," he retorts. "You like the view?"

"Just go," the command. So he goes. And finds himself wishing that he were not quite so talented behind the wheel. For a second only, but even that is too long. Nothing has been right since that tornado dropped out of the blue sky in the middle of a baseball game – this thing has got to end, one way or another.

And the General, who can read his mind almost as well as Luke can, decides to help him.

"Dang it," he cusses, trying to sound genuinely upset. Gets helped in that by the way he has to fight the wheel.

"Keep him on the road, Bo," Luke tells him, because surely, without that little pointer he wouldn't know what to do. As if he were not Bo Duke, able to drive on three inflated tires nearly as well as he can on four.

He brings the car to a clean stop anyway. Glowers at the dashboard as though he figures it did him wrong and complains about the quality of tires that seem to blow out every week, while Luke shoves their ill-gotten sheath of papers under the passenger seat. Then they both slide up onto their respective doorframes and dutifully allow themselves to be arrested to the tune of Rosco's babbling and Enos' giggles.

A half hour later, they're finally in a cell. The General waits out there on Pine Cliff Road for Cooter to be sent after it, file containing the records of their fathers' checkered pasts still safely stashed inside. So there's no evidence of their theft, but Rosco still has a rock solid case against them for illegal trespass. The sheriff's just beyond the bars that contain them, chortling his victory, when their uncle comes lumbering down the stairs like a grumpy bear that's been awakened out of hibernation a month too early.

"Ain't no bail set on these boys, Jesse," Rosco warns when the old-timer starts right in with the standard complaint about how the law has no right to detain his nephews. "And ain't gonna be, neither. Leastwise not until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" Luke complains, and Jesse echoes it. Bo just keeps his mouth shut. There seem to be plenty enough Dukes talking already.

"It's after five in the PM," the sheriff points out quite logically. "Boss Hogg's the only one can set bail, and he ain't due back until nine AM tomorrow. And I caught them red-handed," Luke holds up his hands to display that they're a touch dirty, but not particularly red in color. As if that will get them set free this instant. "In my file room."

This sets up some serious bickering between the two older men, while Luke sits down on the cot and glowers at him. _Fine plan you had, Bo_.

_Why, thank you._

Bo silences the din with just a few words. "We'll be fine."

"You will?" That's their incredulous uncle and if Bo would like to be affronted by the skeptical look he's getting or any suggestion that he and Luke can't rough it for one night, he doesn't get time.

"Y-you will?" Rosco stammers out in echo.

Bo shrugs. "Sure, we'll be fine. Right, Luke?"

No, they will not be fine. They will be annoyed, displeased, irked and otherwise unhappy. "We'll manage," Luke's mouth says, though his eyes suggest that Bo would do best to shut up now, to close his mouth and never open it again. Seems unlikely, and to prove it, Bo speaks up again.

"Of course we will," he affirms. "It ain't like we ain't spent the night in jail before." A few times. "Besides, Rosco's due to go and get us some dinner," he adds with one of his most ingratiating smiles. "I'll have a fried ham sandwich. And some of them potato wedges like Millie makes so nice." The Busy Bee Café, after all, provides all the jail's meals, and since this one might just be his last, Bo plans on enjoying it. "Plus a root beer."

Which sets off the bickering all over again, Rosco insisting that he's nobody's errand boy, and that prisoners don't get to dictate their own meals anyway. Jesse counters with reminders that Rosco is in fact a public servant and in this instance, that means serving the boys a nutritious meal. It's an awful lot of racket, but it diminishes as Jesse all but drags the sheriff up the stairs, explaining his responsibilities to him. Bo wouldn't be surprised if the old man actually accompanies Rosco to the diner and picks out their meals. Or maybe Enos finally gets sent instead. Knowing Jesse, he probably makes them both go.

However it works out, Bo is left alone with Luke. He offers up a nervous smile that feels a little seasick-green around the edges. He figures there's a fistfight in his future; it would be a shame if it started now.

"I'm through talking to you," is all Luke says to him, making himself comfortable on the cot where he has taken up residence. Bo just leans against the bars and smirks. Dinner's coming soon, anyway.

* * *

It's quite a few grumpy and ill-tempered hours later when Enos clocks out and they are finally left completely alone with the clank and hiss of the jail's plumbing system. Or heating or cooling, or maybe it's just the sound of the building slowly rotting into the ground. Whatever the cause, it's as familiar as a lullaby to a pair of Duke boys. Not, Bo reckons, that they will be getting a lot of sleep.

He could ease into it, he could give plenty of notice about his intent. He could fuss and fret about how to do this, but an abundance of careful thought has never been his friend. He could start a fistfight – he's a man of action, after all – but then again, that might just be a little more action than the situation calls for. All he really needs is for Luke to get up off the cot where he's spent most of the evening. All dark and broody with his chin set on his knuckles, pushing the loose skin of his face into all the least attractive shapes. Makes Bo wonder why he wants to do this anyway. Until the bottom drops out of his stomach as he remembers the intensity of those blue eyes when they are focused on him like he's the only thing in the world worth looking at.

So he moves to the corner, as far from Luke as he can get, and pouts. Waits, because sometimes it just takes time, and other times he has to put in some extra effort. Nothing changes, so he huffs. Sighs and shoves his hair back from his face like it's bugging him. It's nearly dark in here by now, which means Bo has to make his gestures big enough that even if they were in a pitch black room, there'd be no missing them.

"Bo," his cousin starts, but he doesn't move, not even enough to come out of that annoyed little pose he's got going on over there.

"Shut up, Luke," he crabs right back. Seems dishonest, when adrenaline is thundering through him like the heartbeat pounding in his ears, to act pouty. But there's a fine line between lying and shucking, and Bo reckons he can walk it with the best of them.

He hears it more than sees it. The way Luke's hand comes down to slap his own knee, the protesting of the whatever springs still work in that old cot, the rustle as Luke does some hair mussing of his own. "Bo," he says again. Exasperation on top of annoyance, but there's the groan the cot gives out, followed by the unmistakable thud of a boot on concrete.

Bo stays quiet, and he'd like to say it's a fine strategic move on his part, but it's more like necessity. His mouth has gone too dry to be trustworthy with words anyway.

Luke's close, Bo can just about feel his heat. Not close enough so he waits like a spider in his web. Hears the wetness of Luke's mouth opening, to chastise or question or maybe even to comfort, but Bo doesn't let it happen. He pulls a bootlegger's turn, illegal and reckless and likely to get a man killed for all the danger lurking inside it. Catches hold of Luke's shoulder with his right hand and an elbow with his left, and shoves. One, two three stumbling steps and Luke's spine is hitting the cinderblock wall that lines the back of the cell. Getting ready to protest, and Bo presses his own mouth right into those complaining lips. Leans his whole body into the action, sparks of heat from his knees to his chest. Caught somewhere between holding Luke still and putting everything he's got into the kiss – this time he doesn't make any excuses or run.

Hands on his shoulders, pushing against him. Insufficient force to shove him off, only enough pressure for Luke to be able to say later that he put up a struggle. But Bo can feel it, the way Luke's heart pounds like a dog straining at a chain, the want and the fear all balled up inside him.

More serious shove against him, so gives Luke the space he seems to be asking for. Because it's only fair and wise to let him breathe.

"Bo!" comes the complaint. Could be about the kissing, could be about the fact that the kissing has stopped. Bo decides to interpret it as the latter. (And just maybe he's happy enough to catch Luke with his mouth open, because that sort of kissing is infinitely better.) More shoving at his shoulders, but Bo knows his cousin's in no danger of asphyxiating, so he just keeps right on with what he's doing. Tasting barbequed pork because that's what Luke had brought to him for dinner. Figures the other side of this kiss must taste like salty ham, since Rosco hasn't ever seen fit to bring them toothbrushes or even a breath mint to follow on their jailhouse meals.

He closes his eyes and presses in further, to that forgetful place where there's no taste or thought or worry, just feeling. Luke's breastbone heaving against his, the rub south of that, only half intentional, the roughness of the stubble on Luke's chin and the paradoxical softness of his lips. The way those broad, work-toughened hands stop their unconvincing pressure against his shoulders and slide around, leaving streaks of heat behind, until Luke is holding him. The curl of Luke's hair caught between his fingertips, the gentle puff of air against his cheek when the kiss pauses.

Someday, he reckons, he's going to have to figure out how to get Luke out of his pants. (Sooner than that, he's going to have to get them out of jail. Or Luke is – whichever way it works, they can't be locked in here when the time comes for bigger and better things.) But it's taken a tornado dropping out of the clear blue sky, a host of girls (none of which, whether they have been in Luke's arms or his own, have been liked one bit), several races, fistfights, pointless errands – it's taken the better part of two years to get this far. And, really, this place feels pretty darn good. Especially when Luke's arms come up to wrap around his shoulders, warmth of a hand at the back of his neck. Stretching up onto the balls of his feet to meet Bo halfway, and what might have been a case of curiosity is becoming something more like want now. Need and desire.

So Bo banishes all thought, leans forward and presses his lips against Luke's, feels the way his cousin's mouth opens to welcome him, and resolves to worry about everything else later.


End file.
